Hockey roundup

Both girls' teams begin playoffs Monday

The Cloquet-Esko-Carlton girls hockey team will open the Section 7AA playoffs at Northwoods Credit Union Arena on Thursday night, hosting Forest Lake in a first-round game.

The teams played each other in the first game of the season, skating to a 1-1 tie at the Forest Lake Sports Center Nov. 12.

The ’Jacks earned the third seed in the seven-team section, meaning they play a home playoff game and avoid a potential second-round matchup against top-seed Elk River-Zimmerman (19-3-0). Grand Rapids-

Greenway was seeded second.

After CEC, the Duluth Northern Stars, Cambridge-Isanti, Forest Lake and St.

Francis-North Branch are the remaining seeds.

A CEC win would mean a matchup against either Grand Rapids-Greenway or St.

Francis-North Branch in the semifinals, with CEC hosting against the latter team. The section finals are Feb. 16 at the IRA Civic Center in Grand Rapids.

The Moose Lake Area girls team (5-19-0) will play at top-seeded Chisago Lakes on Thursday night in their Section 7A quarterfinal game. The Rebels would play either International Falls or Proctor-

Hermantown if they should win the game, on Feb. 14 in Cloquet.

The team lost its last regular season game on Monday night to Proctor-Hermantown by a

3-1 score at Riverside Arena. Maggie Unzen scored the team’s goal and Kaitlyn Greene stopped 46 of 49 shots on goal in nets.

MLA boys held to only one goal against Pine City

Meanwhile, the Moose Lake Area boys team (9-12-0) came back to earth after its record-

setting 13-5 win over North Branch last week by falling 5-1 at home to Pine City-Rush City on Tuesday night.

The state’s leading scorer, Josh Cisar, scored his 52nd goal of the season at the 6:02 mark of the first period to open the scoring, but Pine City-Rush City held Minnesota’s second-

leading scorer, Tyler Cisar, off the score sheet in the contest.

The Rebels outshot Pine City-Rush City 32-24 for the contest but couldn’t find a

second goal.

It was the team’s only game of the week after Friday night’s game with Legacy Christian was postponed when 18 of the Rebels’ 20 players contracted the flu at the same time.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Coach Josh Gamst said. “We only had two players on the team show up for school.”

The game will be made up next Tuesday night.

Moose Lake Area (6-6-0 in the Two Rivers Conference) is at Mora on Thursday, Feb. 9.

“That’s a big game for us,” Gamst said. “We’ve beaten them once already this season so if we beat them again we might get a home playoff play-in game in our first round of the section tournament.”

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